Bloggiesta Kick-off
Bloggiesta begins today and runs through Sunday, April 1st.
For those who have a blog, this is a three-day blogging party devoted to working on perfecting your blog and connecting with others bloggers doing the same thing. If you aren’t already familiar with Bloggiesta, hop over to It’s All About Books and There’s a Book, our hosts for the fiesta.
I have some ambitious plans for the weekend but realistically don’t think I’ll get to all of them. I also want to use this weekend to visit other blogs for tips and ideas to make my site better and use this list for a basis for future improvements.
Artistic Changes:
• Create a new background for the blog. Done
• Create a cover image for my Facebook page timeline Done
• Create a cover image for my Facebook page timeline Done
Self-hosting Project:
• Research hosting companies for future move to self-hosting Ongoing
• Research templates and how to move my old content to WordPress.org Done
• Back up the blog. Done
• Research templates and how to move my old content to WordPress.org Done
• Back up the blog. Done
Work on the blog:
• Add a copyright notice to my review post template. Done
• Write a post on my new audiobook rating category for ‘Listenability’ Not Done
• Participate in several Mini Challenges:
Pinterest Done
Windows Live Writer Done
Labels/tags mini-challenge Ongoing
Get Noticed by Search Engines Done
• Write a post on my new audiobook rating category for ‘Listenability’ Not Done
• Participate in several Mini Challenges:
Pinterest Done
Windows Live Writer Done
Labels/tags mini-challenge Ongoing
Get Noticed by Search Engines Done
Other:
• Visit other blogs and offer encouragement Ongoing
• Join in a Twitter party (I need to be a better twitterer) Done
• Housekeeping: Clean up email and google reader Not Done
• Join in a Twitter party (I need to be a better twitterer) Done
• Housekeeping: Clean up email and google reader Not Done
Are you planning any changes?
There’s still time to join in. Just add your kick-off post to the linky.
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Under My Apple Tree 
I am curious what new background you will create! Have fun 🙂
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The idea is in my head. Now I have to get it out and into a graphics program!
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Great list! I hope you have fun with Pinterest!
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I signed up for Pinterest a few weeks ago and now I don’t know what to do with it so this was a perfect challenge for me to join.
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That is a neat list that I think looks deceptive about the amount of work it will involve. Good luck, I hope you get the self-hosting started up. There are enough bloggers around who also self-host, it’s just a matter of finding them and ask about it.
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The self-hosting project I want to have completed by the end of the year. This will be a fact finding mission. I want to create a pro/con list including costs.
I should have listed my tasks in order of difficulty! The second two categories, Bloggy Stuff and Other Stuff, I should be able to complete. The graphics I will get started on but I have a tendency to keep editing and changing before I’m satisfied.
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Great list! Are you on WP.com? How do you have a review post template? I don’t know how to do that.
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Yes, I’m on wp.com. I own my domain and I redirect it to wp.
I struggled with my review post template for a while. The blogging template that I use, Paperpunch, does not work well with the visual editor. It constantly adds code, moves images and in general messes everything up. So I designed a template review post, one for audio and one for print, saved it as a draft, and copy it for each new review. Over time I added a little HTML code to get the different sizes, colors and bolding for my text.
This would probably be a good idea for a tutorial post. If there is interest I’ll write something up as a follow up post to Bloggiesta.
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I want to wish you good luck with your bloggiesta goals. I love WP self-hosting.
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My computer is off being fixed right now so fingers crossed I get it back tonight because I sure could use a weekend focused on catching up on my blog!
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That is quite an impressive list of things to get done. I hope you accomplish everything you wanted to get done over the weekend!
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I’ve pondered the self-hosting thing; I’ll be interested to see what you come up with…and also what background you’ll be using.
Yes, I think your list will consume your time; it does look like a bit of work.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
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Sounds like a good list. I hope you get everything done you want to.
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Wow! Your blog seems pretty perfect to me already, Leslie. But I understand that drive towards even more refinement. I’m constantly trying to improve my own blog, even if that’s not apparent. 🙂
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i keep thinking about whether i need a FB page for my blog.. your list sounds great and your blog is, like Suko mentioned, pretty perfect.. but then again, there is always something more we can do..
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Your list is impressive — I’ll be doing income taxes sadly!
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I made the jump to self-hosting this weekend. Both scary, and thrilling. It’s a whole other world out there! Have a wonderful and productive weekend! Good luck with your list 🙂
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I’m so envious of bloggers like you who have such beautiful photography on your blog! I’m participating in Bloggiesta too, but haven’t crossed a single thing off my list yet. How did you add the link to your header? Is that part of your theme? (I’m on WordPress, too, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to add a home page link to my custom graphic that’s my header.)
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The link is part of the theme. I can’t make any changes to the header or upload an image. It’s all part of the CSS and I would need to buy the CSS upgrade to alter it.
It’s the Site Title (under settings -> general), not the image, that’s clickable in your theme. You would have to add a title. If you don’t want to do that you can always add a tab at the top with a link to ‘Home’.
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Thanks, Leslie! I was thinking of a Home tab before, but couldn’t picture how to make it work because the home page already exists. The only way I know to have another tab show up is to create a new page, but then the existing home page content would still be on the UN-tabbed page not the new Home page, if that makes any sense!
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I think that can be done in the custom menu section but I’m not sure as I haven’t used your theme. Instead of creating a page, just make link? That’s what I did for my ‘Weekend Birding’ tab.
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I need to work on the Copyright stuff…I have the mini-challenge bookmarked, lol.
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